2006 – Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

***

Scenario: Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.

1973 – Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.

2006 – Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

***

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping.

1973 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2006 – Billy’s Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy’s sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

***

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.

1973 – Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.

1973 – 5 High School Boys leave town. Mary does her senior year at a special school for expectant mothers.

2006 – Middle School Counselor calls Planned Parenthood, who notifies the ACLU. Mary is driven to the next state over and gets an abortion without her parent’s consent or knowledge. Mary given condoms and told to be more careful next time.

***

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.

1973: Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.

2006: Pedro’s cause is taken up by state democratic party. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can’t speak English.

***

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.

6 Responses

First of all, I generally find your blog very interesting. Many of your observations bring me to a healthy pause.

This post seemed a bit off for me, so I’m offering up a couple of alternate scenarios, based on both personal experience and observation.
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Scenario: Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.

1973 – Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class. Learns to suppress behavior that seems to annoy others. Works a dead-end job the rest of his life.

2006 – Jeffery sits in a class where the teacher recognizes that ADD/ADHD is not a disability, but an amazing talent for doing multiple things at the same time. He goes on to a stellar career in technology fields that he invents, because nobody else could juggle the simultaneous concepts.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping.

1973 – Billy, like his father, becomes a persistent abuser, but nobody in the neighborhood does anything about it because it’s “none of their business.” Like his father, he’s too busy doing other things to spend time with his son, which lead him to break the window that resulted in the whipping.

2006 – Billy’s Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy’s mom raises him as a single mother. He learns to be a loving and attentive parent, and leaves his abusive past where it belongs… in the past, instead of repeating “the sins of the father.”

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.

1973 – Mark shares headache “medicine” with Principal out on the smoking dock. They both get high… they develop a life-long (about 4 years) friendship before they both OD at a Grateful Dead concert.

2006 – Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons. Both are found, along with plans to murder fellow student whose bullying dad beat up Mark’s dad in 1973 before they became “lifelong friends” (they weren’t but Mark’s dad was too humiliated about being beat up to let on otherwise, and lived the rest of his life in resentment).
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A little late for that Mike (she died in 2000), but I’ll take the suggested hug anyway. :D

What we do need more of, is people like Father Joe, who (I strongly suspect, based on what I’ve read here) reach out in compassion, and not derision or judgement. My wife is a school teacher, and I teach youth Bible study and coach football. The scenarios I proposed are way too real.

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